World Athletics scraps landing zone idea to avoid ‘war’ with long jumpers
Plan was introduced to reduce number of foul jumps
‘Athletes do not want to embrace it,’ says Jon Ridgeon
World Athletics has scrapped plans to introduce a take-off zone for the long jump rather than the traditional board because of widespread hostility from athletes. Jon Ridgeon, World Athletics’ chief executive, said that while the proposals had gone well in trials, “you do not want to go to war with your most important group of people”.
The idea of introducing a wide take-off zone was to reduce the number of foul jumps with athletes no longer required to try to hit a narrow board before jumping. However, the Olympic long jump champion, Miltiadis Tentoglou, described the proposal as “dog shit” because it took much of the skill out of the event, while Carl Lewis called it an “April Fool’s joke”. Continue reading...
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